KAMPALA: Authorities have failed to investigate meaningfully the deaths three years ago of at least 40 people during two days of rioting in Uganda. Some families of victims told Human Rights Watch recently that they still hope for justice. The government has made numerous promises to investigate the deaths during the so-called “Kayunga riots," but a parliamentary committee mandated to examine the incident has stalled, failing to call any witnesses. No police or military members have been held accountable for the violence. “The long government inaction on the killings of people in September 2009 is an insult to victims," said Maria Burnett, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Resorting to lethal force without clear justification in the face of protests is unacceptable, yet it is becoming the norm in Uganda." On September 10 and 11, 2009, after the authorities had sought to prevent the cultural leader of the Buganda ethnic group from traveling to Kayunga, a town near Kampala, his supporters took to the streets. In some instances demonstrators threw stones and set debris, unoccupied vehicles, and an unoccupied police post alight. In response military and police quickly used live ammunition. Unarmed protesters and bystanders died as the policeand military police used lethal force to try to frighten people off the streets. Human Rights Watch investigated 13 separate incidents and documented several in which security forces shot live ammunition through the closed doors of peoples' homes, killing those inside. Kinaalwa Sseddulaaka Jackson, the owner of a dry cleaning shop about 100 meters from the Masaka road in Tomusange zone, Ndeeba, hid in his back storage room and locked the back door on September 10 when an army armored personnel carrier entered Ndeeba and soldiers on board began shooting. A few minutes later a uniformed soldier walked through the area and fired his AK-47 through Sseddulaaka's back door, killing him instantly. Human Rights Watch researchers saw two bullet holes in that door, as well as five other bullet holes in doors and walls in the neighborhood. All were in the lower half of the doors and walls. In Busega, an area dense with open-air shops and stalls, soldiers shot and killed two people in separate incidents on September 11, 2009. Residents and officials reported that on the previous day rioters in the area had blocked roads with fires and demanded money from those trying to enter Kampala by car. Rioters had looted a Coca Cola truck and burned it. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the area remained calm until the next morning when a military armored personnel carrier and military and police trucks drove through, allegedly to tell people to clear the streets and return home. The shops closed quickly when soldiers began firing live bullets despite the absence of any rioting or demonstrating. Thirteen-year-old Daoudi Ssentongowas struck in the head and killed inside his family's shop when a bullet ripped through a refrigerator next door. His death triggered more demonstrations, and members of the community tried to block the personnel carrier from re-entering the area by burning debris in the road. In the days after the unrest the police conducted brutal mass arrests of hundreds of young men, beating alleged riot suspects. Television stations broadcast film of the arrests and beatings. The government eventually charged 31 people with terrorism but dropped all charges earlier in 2012. The government officially maintains that only 27 people lost their lives, largely as a result of “stray bullets" fired by security personnel deployed on armored personnel carriers. However, hospital records and investigations by human rights organizations put the death toll at over 40. The authorities have never seriously investigated the killings by the security forces during and after the unrest, despite numerous pledges to do so from government ministers and Uganda's parliament.
